Photo credit: Elena Mozhvilo, used with permission via Unsplash
By now, it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that I love a good courtroom drama. I come from the land of To Kill a Mockingbird. I have seen every episode of The Good Wife and almost every episode of Law and Order (not SVU, but the real one). When I was a young lawyer, when I’d arrive at the courthouse in the morning for trial, I used to check in with the courthouse security guards to see what was happening in the courthouse that day – to see if there were any big cases going on – any cases about civil rights or about monuments to the Ten Commandments sitting in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court. Then, in breaks in my own trial – I’d go to the other courtrooms and watch the drama unfolding there.
And then, when I moved to Marin County, and got called for jury duty, and actually got selected to serve on a jury – and got sworn in – and got to listen to the evidence – and deliberate with my peers on the jury – and vote – and got to hear the foreperson announce our verdict: “We the members of the jury find the defendant: Not guilty.” Oh!.....
You see there’s drama to what happens in the courtroom – because it’s wrapped up with real life – real people, with real troubles, struggling towards the truth. And there’s a ritual to it. What we do in the courtroom is a ritual that we have created specifically with the intention of ascertaining the truth. In this case, in this set of troubles, what is the truth?
Different cultures do it differently, but there’s a basic structure to it. (1) A charge is brought, a claim, a case – real people bring real problems. (2) A response is made. (3) Witnesses testify. (4) A verdict is given. And then, here’s the thing: (5) That verdict then becomes the operative reality for the lives of the parties (and beyond).[1] In a civil case, the parties’ dispute is settled and they have to abide by the decision. In a criminal case, either the defendant goes free, or not. In a divorce case, the verdict dissolves a relationship. In an adoption case, the verdict creates a legal relationship – names the family, legally, parent and child.
Out of this courtroom ritual, the verdict becomes the operative reality for real people in their real lives. We do all of this imperfectly – it’s not always pretty – it’s not always just – but we go through this ritual to try to get at the truth.
It’s not surprising that the Bible is full of courtroom drama. The Bible is about real life. People are contending with each other, and trying to get at the truth. And, something vital is at stake. Back in May, we talked about how Peter is called into court, and how he testifies to this radical good news he’s preaching – good news that has the powers on edge. Peter’s called into court – so, too, is the Apostle Paul. There’s courtroom drama in the Hebrew Scriptures. There’s Solomon. In the prophets, God brings a case against the people, again and again. In the Book of Job, Job in his suffering brings a case against God.
In this summer series – Call Your Next Witness – we’ll walk into thsse courtrooms and take a look around, and see what we see.
Here we are, this morning, in the courtroom with Jesus.[2] We’re in the Gospel of John. All of Jesus’ ministry has led him here – from the very beginning – the Word became flesh and dwelt in the midst of us – all the way to this courtroom. And what happens in this courtroom will become the operative reality in this gospel. So let’s walk into the drama of this story, and see what we see.
Now as we pick up the story – Jesus has been arrested – they’ve been at the Last Supper, where he washed the disciples’ feet – and taught them, saying, “I am the vine you are the branches” – “This commandment I give you: Love one another” – “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” And they’ve gone to Gethsemane, and Jesus has prayed – and he has been betrayed, arrested, and taken to the religious leaders – who now take him to Pontius Pilate – the representative of the Roman Empire – to be tried, and, the religious leaders hope, killed.
Now remember, in a courtroom drama – in this ritual – the first thing that usually happens is that (1) someone brings charges – someone frames the case. Look what happens here. The religious leaders bring Jesus to Pilate’s palace – and they stop at the door. They won’t go in. They hand Jesus over to Pilate, and Pilate asks – “What charges do you bring?” And they respond, “If he wasn’t an evildoer, we wouldn’t have handed him over to you.” (My friends, those are not charges.) See what happens here – the prosecutors hand over Jesus, but they won’t even enter the courtroom – and they don’t state any charges. Note the hypocrisy of the powers: They want Jesus dead, but they don’t want to become unclean along the way.[3]
So it’s up to Pilate to figure out what the charges are, so he asks Jesus, “What is it you have done?”[4] He asks Jesus to bring charges against himself. In the Gospel of John – and this still surprises me – no one ever actually gets around to bringing any actual charges against Jesus. (Now, I think the real issue here is how Jesus is king – but no one is brave enough to bring the charge.)[5]
The second and third things that happen in a courtroom are that (2) there’s a defense and (3) witnesses testify. A prosecutor asks questions; a witness answers and testifies. That doesn’t go so well for Pilate. Pilate asks, “Are you king of the Jews?” And Jesus answers, “Is that your own idea or did someone tell you that?” Jesus responds to Pilate’s questions by asking Pilate questions. Jesus becomes the interrogator, he flips the script, and he now leads the proceedings – and his witness – toward the truth. When Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world; I have come to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me,” Pilate says – “So you are a king?” And Jesus replies, “You say I am.” Did you see what happened there? Pilate – PILATE – is the one who testifies that Jesus is king.
And after the questions and the testimony, it’s time for someone to render a verdict. Pilate decides: “I find no basis for charges against this man.” He says it twice. Once in this Scripture, and again to the crowd outside. “I find no basis for charges against this man.” And then – as much to mock the crowd as anything – Pilate has a crown put on Jesus’ head, and then a purple royal robe – and hands him over to be crucified. In this trial, Jesus is not charged, explicitly acquitted, nevertheless sentenced to death, and then coronated and exalted on a cross.[6]
If this is a trial where the issue is whether or not Jesus has committed a crime, then this trial is a shambles and a farce. At no point in this trial are any charges brought against Jesus – the prosecutors don’t even have the integrity to enter the courtroom. The interrogator – Pilate – can’t get the witness to answer any of the questions. Jesus quietly takes control of the proceedings. And after hearing what Jesus has to say, the judge – Pilate – determines that there is no basis for any charge against Jesus, and they crucify him anyway.
And here we are, in this courtroom, left standing in the mess of all this – with the powers of the world doing what powers do. It makes no sense. We are left standing here, with this question hanging in the air:
“What. Is. Truth?”
Now, maybe that question feels familiar – in this world – our world – where the very issue of whether there is something called truth seems to be contested. Post-modern thinking has appropriately challenged some claims of absolute truth, but has left us in a haze where philosophers say all truth is now contingent or contextual. Our public discourse is perilously close to dispensing with truth and facts – what Stephen Colbert likes to call “truthiness.”[7] And Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its generative ability makes some of us wonder – what will become of truth if we cannot believe what we see, and hear, and read?
What is truth?
In this Scripture, we usually treat that as a rhetorical question: What is truth? In the text, Pilate speaks the question, and no one speaks an answer. Pilate asks the question – and Jesus – standing there in all his dignity – stares him down. And there they are. Pilate looking at Jesus; Jesus looking at Pilate. They stand there... with the question hanging in the air.
And so we hold this question, as if it were rhetorical – or maybe even unanswerable – particularly in the midst of the destruction that the powers have wrought in the world – perhaps it is a cynical question – a question for philosophers – What is truth?
But here’s the thing. The question has an answer.[8] In this text. As Pilate and Jesus stand there, with the question hanging in the air – the answer is right there too—right there, in the room with them. Pilate asks the question, “What is truth?” And the answer is staring him right in the face. The answer... is Jesus. What is really on trial here – what is really at stake is this question: What is truth? Writ big. And the answer... is Jesus – and in the Gospel of John – that has been the answer all along, Jesus, from the very beginning....
It's there at the beginning of the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word became flesh and came to dwell in us... we have seen his glory... the Word made flesh, filled with grace and truth. John the Baptist testifies, right at the beginning: “This is the one. The law came through Moses, but the truth came through Jesus Christ.”
It’s there in the midst of the Gospel: The Word becomes flesh and dwells in the midst of us. Jesus points us again and again – in his flesh – to the truth. Jesus heals broken bodies and troubled minds; Jesus feeds hungry crowds with the bread of life; Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb. Sign after sign. And Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.. If you hold to my teaching, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
It's there in the beginning of the gospel, and in the midst, and here at the end – as Jesus is crowned king and lifted up on a cross – as Easter morning opens up into Resurrection and into new life in a garden of New Creation. As the writer of the gospel testifies and says at its close, these things are written so that you might see and believe and have life, and the last words of the gospel then point to the testimony about Jesus yet to be written.
What is really on trial in the palace of Pontius Pilate is what has been at stake all along, from the beginning on up until now: In the mess that the powers have made of the world, that we have made of the world, What is truth?
And watch this – if we stand in the midst of this courtroom drama, knowing that nothing less than truth is on trial, then the scene turns upside down, and this becomes clear:
The one who is bringing the charges (against the powers)... is Jesus.
The one asking the questions... is Jesus.
The one testifying to the truth... is Jesus.
The one rendering the verdict... is Jesus.[9]
And the verdict itself... is Jesus.
Now, do you remember a little while ago I said that the last thing that happens in the ritual of a good courtroom drama is that the verdict becomes the operative reality in the world of the parties. As we stand in the Gospel of John, saying, “The verdict becomes the operative reality in our lives” – here – it’s just another way of saying, “The Word became flesh and dwells in us – us – full of grace... and truth.”
With this verdict – God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, stronger than any power – with this verdict, the word becomes the operative reality in our lives. The word becomes flesh, in us, filled with grace and truth. We become the word, testifying to the truth.
We are starting this series – about courtroom scenes in Scripture – we are starting it big – with the trial of Jesus – with testimony about Jesus, with testimony embodied in Jesus, with Jesus himself pointing us – out of the wreckage of our world – toward truth, and love, and life.
That is, after all, why we’re here. We gather together, week after week, in this place, in some sense seeking truth. We come trying to make sense out of this often-confounding world; we come trying figure out how to live lives of meaning, lives that make a difference; we come yearning together to live lives of love that bless and heal the world’s hurting places. We come to experience, together, the Word made flesh – to glimpse some truth. And then we go, to testify with our whole lives to what we have found together in Christ – we go to be that Word made flesh – witnesses to the truth we have found here:
There’s so much good news here, in Jesus Christ. As we think about how that truth might become the operative reality in our lives – here are some questions to take with you along the way:
· How will we – how will you testify to the truth with the life you live?
· How will you embody in your flesh the love of Jesus that is at work, even now, saving the world from everything that would do us harm?
· How will we – together – be the body of Christ in the world, extending a healing touch to those who are hurting, feeding the hungry, setting the whole world free?
In that courtroom with Pontius Pilate, with that question hanging in the air – “What is truth?” – the answer is right there – and right here too.
© 2024 Scott Clark
[1] Cf. https://www.npr.org/2024/02/22/1233015932/anatomy-of-a-fall-oscar-best-picture-courtroom , a review of Anatomy of a Fall (a recent courtroom drama), in which the reviewer suggests that the hallmark of a courtroom drama is the restoration of order.
[2] For general background on this text and the Gospel of John, see Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. ix (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 811-27; Gail O’Day and Susan E. Hylen, John (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006); Herman Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (New York: T&T Clark Publishing, 2005), pp. 385-98.
[3] See O’Day, NIB, pp. 814-15.
[4] See Waetjen, p.386 (pointing out that Pilate is not aware of any crime with which the religious authorities have charged Jesus).
[5] See Waetjen, pp.385-86 (suggesting that a charge has been formulated in secret by the religious authorities, but that “they are hesitant to state an accusation because they are uncertain of its tenability”).
[6] See Waetjen, pp. 387-88.
[7] See https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/opinion/campaign-stops/the-age-of-post-truth-politics.html
[8] See, similarly, O’Day, NIB, p.818, suggesting that Pilate’s question “contains its own answer... asking this question of the one who is the truth.”
[9] See O’Day, NIB, p.817 (“Although Jesus is nominally on trial here, he is the one who testifies to the truth, and the world is judged by its response to his witness.”).
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